Waltz of Her Life

As far as she knew, only a niece and his sister had come to see him during the time he'd been in the unit. "Yes, but I still don't think you should get this involved. He won't be around much longer."

A few days after Mr. Petty stopped responding, when his bed resembled a spider web of crossing IV tubes and sensors, Kit walked around with heavy shuffling feet, expressionless, like a zombie. A doctor confirmed Linda's suspicions. "There's not much else we can do now, except make him comfortable," he said. Later that day Mr. Petty had been freed of most of his tethers.

"Watch for the glow," Linda told Kit when they sat together in the break room.

"The glow?" Kit repeated.

Linda nodded. "The glow means he's on his way to the other side. It's beautiful. Sometimes you can even see events from his life, flash before your eyes like the most beautiful movie you've ever seen."

"Really?" Kit said, smiling for the first time in several days.

"Yes."

It happened on a Wednesday morning. The director of nursing warned her about it when she first signed in. "He's had a drop of vitals," she said, expressionlessly, without emotion.

"He's barely hanging in."

Linda and Kit helped their other patients in their unit, but also kept their eyes on room 238, which Mr. Petty now shared with Frank Mills, a Hodgins Lymphoma sufferer. "Pull the curtain," Linda said, when it was revealed that Mr. Petty was barely breathing.

Kit did as she was told, and they both stood there silently watching him. A warm glow suddenly emanated from Mr. Petty, and his expression changed. His features, which had been slack for several days, showed a faint tinge of expression, the slight hint of a smile. The light brightened, and Linda watched shadows cross through it. "I see it," Kit murmured. "I see it!" Both she and Linda basked in the glow and warmth of the light and flashes of images of him joyously walking alongside a young, pretty dark-haired woman, of him climbing girders high into the sky as a construction foreman.

Just as quickly, the light and warmth faded, and Linda thought they'd been eased gently back down to the earthly plane, and she could hear the plaintive squeal of the monitor.

"He's gone," Kit cried, rivers of tears flowing out of her eyes as she covered her face in anguish.

Linda held her friend while she sobbed. "He's here," she said. "He's happy. He sees us and wants to know that he's in a better, happier place now." She held Kit and cried along with her, tears of sorrow, but tears of happiness, also.